Walking down the beach yesterday I was hit by a copy of the Gazzetta dello Sport the most notorious and extravagant of the three daily sports papers in Italy, headline letters saying „Grand´Italia!“ Living in Italy now for a while the Gazzetta strikes me as a perfect metaphor for the country. The day before the Gazzetta had published a slamming report on the state of the „Calcio Italiano“ doomed to perish in the global waves. First of all, the tag line doesn´t say something like „All the news that´s fit to print“ but „Tutto il rosa della vita“ which besides the double meaning of „rosa“ as „squad“ could easily be translated as „the bright side of life“. Thus reading the pink paper is a fantasy, it is not about the news and buzz than about your favorite team but about the inexplicable formula of Italian life as such. Only hours before the Gazzetta had slammed the Italian „calcio“ as mentally crippled doomed to perish in a couple of months. Dolce Vita, the Roman decadence of its origin, the golden abyss, the Italian way of life, reading a slamming report on your favorite player while drinking a black espresso in the morning, riding to work in a red Alfa Romeo or diving into the blue ocean, it is an all Italian fantasy come true.